Why Direct Mail Remains a Key Strategy in Marketing to Healthcare Providers

Throughout the ages, humans have relied on one form or another of mail-based communication. Messengers running through the Grecian mountains on foot. The Pony Express blazing across the American frontier. Postal carriers in blue, traversing modern neighborhoods.

Mail is as old as modern humanity itself. And despite long-standing assertions that email was supposed to crush snail mail—after all, why wait for days on end when you could correspond instantly?—direct mail is here to stay, especially when it comes to marketing to healthcare providers (HCPs).

Why? We break it down.

Direct Mail Is Highly Customizable

Branding is a necessary part of marketing in today’s B2B healthcare landscape. Competition is fierce, and you need to stand out immediately, create long-term name recognition, and build trust.

That means establishing a universal voice for all of your marketing materials. That’s a lot to ask of a strictly digital campaign—but you don’t have to do that all digitally. Direct mail is one of the best ways to build your brand, stand out from the crowd, and keep your message and products fresh in the minds of busy HCPs.

Instead of just another white envelope in a sea of white envelopes, you can create an aesthetic experience that speaks to who you are and what your products will do for HCPs.

It Provides a Memorable, Tactile Experience

Digital has a high ROI, but direct mail is tangible, which is important, because touch can create long-lasting, detailed memories, and leave a better impression on your audience.

Put a piece of branded mail in an HCP’s hand, and it’ll strengthen the neural connection between your brand and your message and make recalling who you are that much easier for those short on time. Direct mail is often less intrusive and disruptive than email, and can also help combat digital fatigue while providing an alternative means of communication for those tired of digital marketing campaigns.

Working with a company that develops unique, customized designs, address cards, sizing, premium finishes, and even three-dimensional mailers will help you create an indelible, impactful experience.

Direct Mail Is Targeted & Personalized

Face-to-face communication has long been a cornerstone of HCP marketing, but direct mail is able to fill in gaps and keep communication channels open between meetings. This has become critically important in helping your audience disseminate your messaging quickly and in an effective way, especially as the industry continues to pivot away from in-person interactions in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Highly targeted, personalized marketing is the way of the future—especially when it comes to healthcare marketing, and direct mail is a great way to connect with your audience segments.

It Boasts High ROI—Ideal for Multichannel Marketing

HCPs are notoriously guarded when it comes to their email inboxes. While you should partner with a company that provides well-segmented, clean HCP email lists so you can create and disseminate successful email campaigns, you shouldn’t forget the power of direct mail either, especially when it comes to multichannel marketing.

There are dozens of statistics demonstrating the power, popularity, and effectiveness of multichannel marketing—higher average customer spending and customer retention rates, among these.

It’s Easy to Track & Measure Direct Mail Campaign Performance

While direct mail doesn’t offer the benefit of real-time analytics in the way email and digital marketing can, it’s still relatively easy to monitor the progress of your direct mail campaigns through audience engagement.

Some of the most effective methods of measuring your direct mail efforts require encouraging audience interactions, usually through calls-to-action. In a physical medium such as mailers, these can take the form of QR (quick response) codes, campaign-specific URLs, custom phone numbers, redeemable coupon codes, audience surveys, and more.

In addition to your overall return on investment (ROI), the most important key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring direct mail campaign progress include response rates, conversion rates, cost per acquisition, and average order value (AOV). These metrics can help you reliably track your campaigns, reveal useful audience insights, and optimize your overall marketing strategy for maximum effectiveness.

It’s Great for Boosting Engagement & Building Brand Loyalty

Direct mail has been proven to drastically Increase awareness and visibility for your brand and products.

According to direct marketing and communications services provider Compu-Mail, consumers generally love receiving mail from their preferred brands, and with an open rate of 90 percent and response rate as high as 37 percent, it’s clear that direct mail recipients value the physical mail experience.

Direct mail can also leverage your audience’s inherent fear of missing out on whatever you're promoting, stimulating curiosity and interest and further driving open rates.

If you’re ready to discuss how to use custom direct mail programs with quick turnaround times to create a successful multichannel campaign, contact PDQ today.